Goffredo Mameli, the body and spirit of the nation

(To Alessandro Ghinassi)
02/09/16

For many fellow citizens Mameli is "the one" who wrote the Italian anthem, but little is known about its intense and short life. The hymn itself is little loved, the homeland of great musicians such as Verdi, Rossini, Puccini, Donizetti, it seems to be little represented by the “march” of the “Canto degli Italiani”.

But things are not born for pleasure, history is not a discount store on shelves where to take what most attracts us and satisfies. History is the life of men and their deeds, and Mameli's life is the life of a man, an intellectual, a patriot and a martyr.

When Goffredo Mameli dies at 22 only, the 6 July 1849, United Italy was still a mirage, an unattainable dream. Many after the defeat of the Roman Republic by Giuseppe Mazzini convinced that Unita Italy would never have seen the light. Too many enemies outside and inside the Italian peninsula ruled against unification, and above all the republic of Mazzini seemed to aggravate the contradictions of the Unitary trial - The Roman Republic appeared too unseemly to reconcile the country that was to be the Pope and the Savoy. Cavour understood the situation well and as a pragmatic man he designed a road for the Unity that provided for the Savoy and the papacy at the expense of the ideas of Mazzini and Mazzini.

But back to Mameli. The events that characterize Mameli's life are consumed quickly, in just three years. Nineteen, still a student, he adhered to the ideas of the Italian Risorgimento and preferred a life of sacrifice to a comfortable diplomatic career, since he came from an ancient and wealthy noble family. In 1846, he composed the poem "Brothers of Italy" which began to circulate among students and Genoese Risorgimento circles, but it was not yet a song. In 1847, Mameli contacted the musician Navaro to give a complete music to his poem. The song that came out of it and which was also referred to as the "Song of the Italians", was sung for the first time during the riots in Genoa of which Mameli was one of the organizers. On 10 December 1847, on the occasion of the commemoration of the revolt of 1746 by the Genoese against the Austrians, in the squares of Genoa, unbeknownst to the authorities, the patriots began to wave the tricolor and distribute leaflets with the song of Mameli-Navaro and it was immediately a "media" success.

For his feats full of enthusiasm and his intellectual and organizational skills the young student and patriot Mameli was enlisted in the revolutionary ranks and was brought before Mazzini. In the following spring, just 21 years was already a leading figure of the movement, and with Bixio became promoter, during the motions of 1848, the expedition of the three hundred volunteers for the liberation of Milan that gave life to the 5 days and, in virtue of the extraordinary success of the episode, which saw the passage of Milanese power from the Austrians to patriots, was enlisted as an officer in the army of Giuseppe Garibaldi.

The echo of the 5 days of Milan inflamed the peninsula, the patriots were convinced that it was possible to free Italy from the foreigner. In Rome, Pope Pius IX, who at first seemed to want to support the Italian cause, began to fear for the temporal power of the church. The ambiguous position of the Pope led the population of Rome to revolt and Pius IX was forced to flee to Gaeta. The Risorgimento succeeded in calling a constituent and proclaiming the Republic in Rome. The Pope in exile called the French to help to restore the papacy. For their part, the patriots called the volunteer troops of Garibaldi, who immediately joined and with him Mameli and the Canto degli Italiani was immediately adopted as the Hymn of the Roman Republic.

There was not much game, the better organized French Napoleon III in number had the best and the experience of the Roman Republic ended soon (9 February - 4 July 1849). In the clashes, the 3 June, Mameli injured his leg and died the 6 1849 X-RX of gangrene, shortly after being appointed captain, with in his heart the defeat of the Republic and the dream of a united Italy that vanished.

Mameli died as a Roman citizen, as he perished for the defense of the Roman Republic and then was buried at Verano, the monumental cemetery of Rome, with a tomb that shows the distinguished figures of the city of Rome. After that, no more talk of Mameli, once reached the Unification of Italy in the 1861, the Savoy chose as hymn of the new Kingdom the "Royal March" and the Song of the Italians no longer tracked.
The first turning point in the 1941. Mussolini was in strong consensus, Fascism had long since exhausted its propulsive drive, and then had an idea, he wanted to rediscover the republican roots of the Italian Risorgimento to give a Jacobean and patriotic image to a regime now worn by years of dictatorship and the war. He organized with great pomp the translation of the body of Mameli from Verano to Gianicolo, place of the battle to defend the Roman Republic and where Mameli was wounded.
A secular ceremony that affected the whole city of Rome, a long procession from Verano to Gioanicolo passing through the major squares of the city. Flowers, tears, scenes of a certain regime, but also of a sincere affection for an episode, that of the Roman Republic, which was still very much alive in the collective imagination. The procession did not save Fascism, and Mussolini set out for the inexorable defeat, and with him that of the whole country. On 2 June 1946, after the liberation, the Italians chose the Republic, and the Royal March was closed in a drawer and then the problem arose of finding a hymn that would bring together the various souls of a country in the rubble as well as physical, even moral.
The second turn took place. In the Council of Ministers of 12 October 1946, the Minister of War proposed the Hymn of Mameli as a song for the Armed Forces, and from there extended to a provisional anthem for Republican Italy.
But there was still no peace either for Mameli or for the Hymn. Many members of the Armed Forces would have preferred the Piave song, and not the song linked to an obscure episode of the past, however, which ended badly. The Italian left would have preferred the Hymn of Garibaldi, the radical left considered it too militaristic, the cultured bourgeoisie would have preferred Verdi's "va pensiero". The monarchist right did not digest the Republic, let alone the Hymn, and in any case the right saw all the symbols of the previous regime disappear and for the Catholics it was too tied to anti-papal episodes. In short, nobody really liked it, for this reason, as a good Italian tradition, it was the right one.

The controversy has never been completely dormant. The reconstruction, the economic boom, the period of terrorism and student struggles, tangentopoli, during any phase of the history of our recent Republic there has always been a reason to attack the song of Mameli.
Starting from the 2000 years, the third turning point. Ciampi first and Giorgio Napolitano later, imposed the anthem in all the official events starting from those where the head of state was present. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi said, then president of the Republic: It is an Hymn that, when you listen to it at attention, makes you vibrate inside; it is a song of freedom for a people that, united, rises again after centuries of divisions and humiliations.